The goal of this dissertation is to conduct the first comprehensive study of two major homebuyer tax credit programs recently implemented at local level and their replicability in other distressed central cities in the United States. The first program provides a federal income tax credit of up to $5,000 to first-time homebuyers in Washington, D.C., which went into effect on August 6, 1997, and will expire on January 2, 2002. The second program is a local innovation of Baltimore City that uses property tax credits to attract homebuyers into a targeted inner city neighborhood. (More)

The study analyzes the following research questions: a) What factors affected the quantity and distribution of manufactured home parks? b) Why did parks close? c) How did the state legislature respond and why? d) What are the likely impacts of the state response? A wide variety of sources (for example, key informant interviews, observations of meetings and public hearings, focus groups of park residents, archival materials, and secondary data about manufactured home parks) are employed to investigate a phenomenon embedded in its context. (More)

In recent years, cities worldwide have employed various tactics to control homeless people's use of urban space. Yet such measures never fully accomplish their goal, because homeless people develop ways to adapt to hostile landscapes. In so doing, they not only respond to tactics of spatial control but they also create their own conceptions of urban space that serve to compensate for the structural systems that fail or even punish them. Thus, just as legal categories of property ownership leave homeless people without access to private spaces, they in turn create their own concepts of ownerships and continually seek to privatize public space. (More)

There is a significant movement across the country for the development of retirement communities linked to colleges and universities - college/university linked retirement communities (Pastalan and Schwarz, 1994; Pastalan and Tsao, 2001). The motivation of seniors returning to campus is qualitatively different from those who choose traditional retirement communities. It is obvious that there is a hunger for something more than warm weather, comfortable surroundings, excellent food, and good healthcare (Pastalan, 1999). It is fundamentally about personal growth, the development of more meaningful roles, and an enabling culture that fosters the creation of new models for retirement. (More)